An ode to Things

At the end of 2022, my employer got me a brand new computer. It was a big deal because I had been using a typical company-issued Windows PC for the previous three years — and it was fine — and they gave me a MacBook Air (late 2020 model, aka the M1 MacBook Air). I was very happy to finally get a Mac for work, but also a better computer, with better performance, a better screen, a better microphone, a better design, much better battery life, better software, and so on.

But a part of me was also worried.

I was worried that using a Mac at work while working from home 9 days out of 10 would blur the separation between my day job and my private life (because using a Mac is a big part of my private life and I would even consider it as my number one hobby). Through iCloud, using the same apps, I was worried that my work would somehow infiltrate the safe personal space of my own MacBook Air, via the calendar app for instance, via Reminders, Notes, or even Safari bookmarks.¹

To minimise this potential source of stress, I decided not only to disable iCloud for all the apps and services — except for GoodLinks and Safari extensions — but also to use different apps when possible. For instance, I don’t use MarkEdit to take notes at work, so that my day job doesn’t ruin this fantastic app for me; I use either Tot, The Archive, or FSNotes instead. And this separation goes the other way around too. For instance, I don’t use Pastebot or Mimestream on my personal computer, never mind how great these apps are.

I thought it would be the same for my to-do apps. I assumed Reminders would continue to be my personal task manager, and Things would be the one for work. How naive I was.

One of the first things I did when I got my work MacBook was to buy Cultured Code’s Things app. I had tried it before, and I liked it, so getting a Mac for work was the only excuse I needed to finally own this great piece of software. Like I said, I wanted a different todo app than what I was using on my other computer, so Things was the obvious choice. And everything was glorious for a while: no Reminder app on the work Mac, and no Things on the personal Mac. My life was balanced thanks to the great separation of my daily tools.²

As the months passed, I realised that Things was one of the best apps I had ever used. It’s well-made, good-looking, it motivates to be more organised, and I enjoy using the app, even to manage the most boring work projects. The Quick Entry shortcut? Incredibly good. The Quick Entry with Autofill shortcut? Even better. The Shortcuts integration? One of the best. Heck, even the note-taking part of this modest to-do app is better than half of the Markdown apps I have been testing. At one point, I had to accept the idea that Things was not only a truly delightful software experience, but Things made Reminders look like a piece of crap.³

I like Reminders. It has good and useful features. Its design is more than adequate. It works great with Siri. I can share some lists with my wife, and everything just works. But using it after spending the day on Things really makes it look like a baby app, like an Electron-packaged web app made by people who haven’t smiled in decades.

This feeling was intensified by the fact that my personal MacBook is significantly slower than the M1 Mac I use for work. So when I began using Reminders to organise the “workflow” for this blog — where to start drafts, where to save notes, etc. — I quickly realised that Things was the app I needed, not Reminders, or even Apple Notes, which I still considered to be a more than decent app.

So Things made the jump. Things is the first app that was initially a work-only app to become a personal app too. I use the “area” features to keep task/notes groups in silos, and it’s good enough for now. I hope that one day something similar to Safari Profiles comes to Things, but even without it, the cohabitation between personal tasks & notes and work todos is exemplary in my books.

This morning, I read the release notes of the latest Things for Mac app updates, and this line caught my attention:

Added Quick Entry with Autofill support for the NetNewsWire app (RSS reader).

Now, I can just quickly use my Quick Entry with Autofill shortcut, and the URL of the currently open article on NetNewsWire is added to the notes section of the task in less than a second. Until now to do this, I had to first open a link into Safari to use this shortcut. This little update, a detail really, made me realise how much I enjoy using this app, and that I needed to write about it, so here I am.

Things reminds me a lot of the great Drafts app. But where I eventually got a bit overwhelmed by Drafts — the app is just a never-ending field of possibilities that one can find difficult to stop fine-tuning — I appreciate the constraints of Things; I feel I can use 100% of its potential, while I was feeling that I was wasting most of Drafts’ features.

The slogan for Drafts says “Where text starts,” and for me, Things’ slogan would be “Where ideas get organised,” while sharing the same “quick entry” philosophy. Things has become my de facto Zettelkasten app, and the more I use it, the more delighted I am.